2 Pet. 1. 12 --- 15. Mind toward you in the Terms of the Apostle Peter I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, tho you know them, and be establish'd in the prefent Truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this Tabernacle, to ftir you up, by putting you in remembrance. Knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle.- -Moreover, I will endeavour that you may be able after my Deceafe to have these things always in remembrance. When the Distemper under which he labour'd had fo far weaken'd his Constitution, that he fuppos'd his Departure was at hand, he was willing to have hazarded the Remains of that Life, the Vigor of which he had spent in your Service, to have obtain'd an opportunity. of preaching to you one Sermon more, and would gladly have been brought from his Bed of Languishing to the House of Prayer, to have giving you his dying Charge (if poffible) from this Pulpit, whence you had fo often heard him explain the Principles and enforce the Duties of our Holy Religion. But alas! tho his Spirit was willing, his Flesh was then too weak for this Service. However, what he could not perform himself, he was willing fhould in fome fort be done by another. And tho his Lips are now clos'd in the filent Grave, yet (like Heb. 11. 4. Abel) he being dead yet fpeaks; speaks by the facred Doctrine he fo often inculcated on your Minds in his Sermons and Exhortations, and by the holy Example he gave you, when converfant among you; fpeaks by that Faith and Hope, that Patience and Meeknefs, that Humility and Refignation, that Charity and Kindnefs, which appear'd both in the Conduct of his Life, and in his Behaviour on a dying Bed: Speaks speaks to let you know how excellent and neceflary a thing true Religion is, to make you happy in Life and Health, in Sickness and at Death: fpeaks by his own Sickness and Death, that Righteous Men (as well as others) Ifa. 57. 2. are taken away, and the Prophets do not live for Zech. 1.5. Pfal. 39. 4. ever; and to put you all in mind how frail you Pfal. 90. 12. are, that you may fo number your days as to apply your Hearts unto Wisdom: Speaks to you particularly by the Words of our Text, whereby he after themoft folemn manner recommends to you, as a matter worthy of your utmost Care, that you would fecure to you felves an Entrance into that Reft which remains to the People of God. Being dead (I fay) be yet Speaks; but which is infinitely more aweful, that GOD, whofe Word lives and abides for ever, whofe 2 Cor. 2.16. Word will be either a Savor of Life unto Life, or a Savor of Death unto Death to you, fpeaks, and that after the most obliging and impor- Heb. 3. 19. tunate manner, to invite you to enter into this Ch. 4.1. Reft, and to take heed left any of you fall short of it thro Unbelief. The main Design of the Author of this Epiftle, is to fhew how much the Administration of the Gofpel is to be prefer'd to that of the Law. This he makes appear by many Arguments, the chief of which are taken from the Dignity of the Mediator of the New Teftament, and from the Excellency and Perfection of his Sacrifice. When he had given a glorious Idea of this Mediator in the first and fecond Chapters, and had fhewn in the beginning of the third, that he is as much fuperior to Mofes, as a Son is to a Servant; at the feventh Verfe he takes occafion to exhort the Hebrews to attend to the Doc Pfal. 95. Heb. 3.7-- 12. Doctrine of the Gospel, and to warn 'em of the Danger of an impious Contempt, and obftinate Refufal of the gracious Proposals it contains; which, as he fhews, would certainly expofe 'em to a much feverer Sentence than that pronounc'd and executed on the Ifraelites for their Difobedience and Unbelief formerly in the Wilderness. This Caution he thinks fit to give in the words of the Pfalmift: Wherefore, as the Holy Ghoft faith, To day if ye will hear his Voice, harden not your Hearts, as in the Provocation, in the day of Temptation in the Wilderness; when your Fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my Works forty Years: Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation, and said, "they do always err in their Hearts, and they have not known my ways; so I fware in my Wrath, they shall not enter into my Reft. To enforce this Admonition, he fuggests that David in these words prophefy'd of the Time of the Gospel, when he fays, To day, if ye will hear his Voice, &c. and that therefore 'tis reafonable to apply the Example he produces of the Punishment of the unbelieving Tribes, who provok'd God in the Defart, to those who hould reject the Glad Tidings of the Gospel; to fhew the Guilt and Danger of the latter above the former, and that with as much greater force, as the Light and Grace of the Gospel tranfcend whatever might feem moft glorious in the Law. Therefore he infifts, ver. 12. Take heed, Brethren, left there be in any of you an evil Heart of Unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is call'd to day, lest any of you be harden'd thra Ver. 17, 18, the Deceitfulness of Sin. And again,With I whom was he griev'd forty Years? Was it not with Ver. 13. 19. them them that had finned, whofe Carcafes fell in the Wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his Reft, but to them that believ'd not? So we fee that they could not enter in becaufe of Unbelief. Immediately after he had repeated this fad Inftance of God's Judgment on rebellious Ifrael, he urges his former Caution, and adds in the beginning of the fourth Chapter; Let us there- Chap. 4. fore fear, left a Promise being left us of entring Ver. 1, 2, 3. into his Reft, any of you should feem to come fhort of its for unto us was the Gospel preach'd as well as to them: but the Word preach'd did not profit them, not being mix'd with Faith in them that beard it. For we who have believ'd do enter into Reft; as he faid, As I have fworn in my Wrath, if they fhall enter into my Reft. And to make it evident that the Pfalmift, in mentioning the Oath of God against the Ifraelites, namely, That they fhould not enter into his Reft, infinuates, that there is now alfo, in the time of the Gofpel, a Reft propos'd to us, which Infidels fhall be precluded, and into which thofe who believe fhall certainly enter; he confiders Reft in which God is pleas'deveral kinds of to claim a Property, which are therefore call'd his Refts, and into which his People may be faid to enter, that so it may appear what Reft that is which the Prophet David intimates in the forecited words. He fhews first that it could not be the Sabbath, that Day of Reft that enfu'd the Creation, and in which it is faid, God refted from all his Works; fince this Reft takes its Date from the Foundation of the World: whereas the Rest Reft the Pfalmift means, is spoken of as yet Ves. 3, 4, 5. to come.-If they shall enter into my Reft; altho the Works were finish'd from the Foundation of the World, for he spake in a certain Place of the feventh day on this wife: And God did reft the Seventh day from all his Works; and in this Place again, if they fhall enter into my Rest. That is, they fhall by no means enter into my Reft, according to the Import of the Particle [if] which in the Hebrew Idiom implies a trong Negation; and this is a Form of Speech efpepecially us'd in Swearing. Thus when Mofes puts the Tribes of Ifrael in mind of their Obftinacy and Unbelief, he adds, that God was wroth, and fware, faying, Surely, there shall not one of thefe Men of this evil Generation fee the Good DR Land, &c. 'Tis in the Original, If a Man among thefe Men fhall fee, &c. איש Ver, 7, 8. He farther obferves, that the Reft, fuggef ted by the Pfalmift, could not be the Land of Canaan, tho this was alfo call'd God's Reft, because Ifrael had been poffefs'd of it long before the time of David. Again he limiteth a certain day, saying, in David, To day after so long a time; as it is faid, To day if ye will hear his Voice, harden not your Hearts: For if Jefus [i. e. Fofhua] had given them Reft, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. The Sum of this Reafoning amounts to this: The Royal Pfalmift, in warning Men to hear the Voice of God To day, and not to harden their Hearts against it as the Ifraelites formerly did, left they fhould be punish'd like them; fignifies, that by obeying this Call of God, in believing the Divine Word, they fhall be admitted into God's Reft; which can't here mean the Sabbath, or the Land of Canaan, tho each |